This invention relates to the field of rescue equipment, such as fire trucks and the like, and provides a method and apparatus for providing lighting at the scene of an emergency.
Emergencies such as automobile accidents, fires, train wrecks, building collapses, and other catastrophes, often occur at night, and in locations far removed from street lamps or other sources of artificial lighting. Rescue personnel clearly need adequate lighting to perform their jobs effectively and rapidly, as is necessary in an emergency. The headlights of a conventional fire truck, or of a conventional police car, are often insufficient to supply such lighting. In many cases, such as a fire on an upper floor of a multi-story building, or automobile wreckage located a distance from a main highway, the critical area is far beyond the range of conventional vehicle headlights or hand-held lights. Moreover, even if an accident scene were within range, the headlights of a vehicle, or a portable light, could not illuminate the scene from above.
Various emergency lighting devices have been used, including lights disposed at the end of hand-held poles. Such lights provide illumination beyond the range of the headlights of most emergency vehicles, but they are still unsatisfactory in most cases. Among other problems, manipulation of light towers is often unwieldy, ineffective, and/or beyond the range of the tower, in attempting to provide overhead lighting.
The present invention solves the above-described problem by providing an apparatus and method for illuminating an accident scene. The invention enables an ordinary fire truck, or other conventional emergency vehicle having an extendable ladder, to provide the necessary illumination, without requiring substantial modification of the vehicle, and without interfering with the operation of the vehicle.